


and someone to sing to

by cincave



Series: Character Studies [4]
Category: Gaya Sa Pelikula (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cincave/pseuds/cincave
Summary: A character study: Paolo Pangilinan (part 2)
Series: Character Studies [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094300
Kudos: 7





	and someone to sing to

He is sitting with your family at the breakfast table.

None of your previous relationships ever made it this far. You did not let them ever get this far. Yet here he is, passing sinangag and tuyo to your mother while effortlessly charming your sister.

For all of his declarations that he is not a morning person, he is absolutely radiant in the sunlight.

Rae and Icay have always been the last standing guardians of your heart and, just like he did with all of your proud and defiant walls, he passed through them and marched into your heart with a hero's welcome.

He looks at the tuyo on his plate with an air of great mystery and you hear your mother laugh, charmed by this lack of knowledge on how to eat such a simple dish. You watch as she patiently teaches him how to descale it, snap pieces off and eat with vinegar.

You want a thousand more mornings like this. Mornings where he is installed in your family's table and you can look at him unguardedly and unreservedly.

And you suddenly realize that the treacherous "what if?" that has lived in your heart has long reshaped from the interrogative "what if" to the imperative "touch him". Every beat of your courage-filled heart is a drop of water joining the river eroding against the dam of your control.

It is no longer a question of if but a question of when.

You are suddenly seeing it far on the horizon, a dark blot against the receding sun, inching ever closer. You know the day will come when you will no longer be able to stay your hand. The levee will break in the middle of the night and you will reach out and touch his face, run the pad of your thumb across his beautiful eyebrows and press your finger on his sweet lips.

Would he touch you back?

That is the damning question: would he touch you back?

You feel the chasm between the two of you slowly shrinking as, day by day, you step closer and closer. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when you are reading the words of medicine on your textbook, you allow yourself to believe that he, too, is stepping towards you, meeting you in the middle.

Your bravery has always propelled you forward to achieve insurmountable heights. You've always flown through the air on wings of courage and it is that same steelheart feeling pushing you to move closer and closer.

You watch him eat his tuyo and his sinangag. You watch him start to belong here with your family. 

One day, that blot on the horizon will be here and now. One day, your vaunted courage will have disintegrated all the excuses that you tell yourself. 

And one day, it will tell you that any other step without touching him is a lie.


End file.
